Flight Of Fantasy

by Parv, Valerie

  He nodded, his profile finely chiselled in the flickering street-lights. ‘I doubt if she knows how. She’s been written up as Superwoman for so long that it’s a struggle to live up to her own image.’

  A shiver shook Eden. ‘I’m glad I’m not a public figme, having to live up to everyone’s expectations.’

  ‘Nobody forced Dana to become Superwoman. She wanted it and now she’s paying the price.’ There was a chill in his voice which suggested there was more.

  Her head jerked up, fright widening her eyes. ‘Do you think she could be suicidal?’

  ‘She’s made threats and they’re never to be taken lightly, even in jest. When I wouldn’t stay with her after we wrapped it up tonight, she dropped hints about what she might do. I didn’t take it seriously until she called me at home, very drunk, demanding to see me. I want you with me when I do.’

  ‘You don’t think she’ll actually do anything, do you?’ she asked shakily.

  ‘Perhaps not. But I can’t ignore her call just in case.’

  It was one of the oldest ploys to bring a man to heel, Eden couldn’t help thinking. For now it seemed to be working. But what would Dana do when Slade turned up with her, Eden, in tow?

  Her heart was pounding as they parked outside an exclusive high-rise apartment block in one of the best parts of Hobart. At Slade’s suggestion, Eden stayed out of range of the security cameras while he identified himself.

  Through the intercom, Dana’s voice sounded slurred. It took several attempts before she got the security doors open and they were able to go inside. A luxuriously appointed lift carried them to her apartment, which occupied the entire penthouse floor.

  Her front door was open and she lounged in the doorway wearing a grey silk nightdress and négligé, her dainty feet bare. ‘Darling, you camel’ she exclaimed as Slade stepped out of the lift. Catching sight of Eden behind him, she made a face. ‘Why did you have to bring her?’

  He took a grip on Eden’s arm and propelled her with him into the apartment. Dana went to a pearl-blue granite bar and mixed herself a drink. Eden looked around, seeking clues to this complex woman.

  There was none in the apartment, which was designed for show rather than comfort. A wall of tinted glass opened on to a vast terracotta-tiled terrace with a spectacular view of the city beyond. Downlights, recessed into raked ceilings, gleamed like stars overhead, firing pin-points of light off the predominantly chrome and glass furnishings.

  There were no signs of a private life. No photographs or mementoes, only carefully arranged objets d’art. Eden shuddered. She had thought Slade’s mansion at Nutgrove Beach lacked warmth, but this was positively arctic.

  ‘You said you needed me, Dana.’ Slade’s ringing tones jolted her to attention.

  Dana gestured with her glass, which looked to contain neat whisky, and not her first by any means. ‘I said I needed you, not a ménage à trois.’

  His protective arm was warm around Eden’s shoulders as he drew her closer. ‘Eden is my wife. You may as well accept the situation.’

  Downing half of her drink, she laughed. ‘Dana Drury doesn’t have to accept anything. You don’t love her. You only married her as a cover so the media would leave us alone.’

  At Eden’s shocked intake of breath, his hold tightened reassuringly. ‘You don’t know the first thing about it. I married Eden because I love her, not for any other reason.’

  Knowing it was said to convince Dana didn’t prevent a bright flame of desire from leaping inside Eden. What if it had been true instead of a convenient fiction?

  The other woman’s face was a twisted mask of hatred. ‘I don’t believe it.’ She splashed more whisky into her glass, spilling some across the granite surface. A generous amount made it into the glass and she drank it in one swallow. ‘You can’t love her. I can’t lose you, too.’ The last word came out as a desperate whisper.

  ‘You haven’t lost anything except a little pride,’ Slade reasoned. ‘It will still be your show.’

  ‘You don’t understand. It’s the only love I have. I can’t share it, I can’t.’

  Eden’s heart went out to the woman. How could she have envied such a brittle shell whose only emotional succour came from an unseen audience? No wonder she couldn’t t face the prospect of sharing it.

  Unexpectedly, Slade swung towards the window, resting his hand with apparent casualness on a glass and chrome étagère. ‘She has so much, doesn’t she, Eden? This fabulous view, for one thing. Have you looked at it?’

  How could he admire the view when Dana was destroying herself before their eyes? ‘I don’t think...’ she began.

  His cutting gesture throttled off her objection. ‘Come and see the view, now,’ he insisted.

  The steely edge in his voice moved her to obey. Standing where he ordered, she saw what had captured his attention, and it wasn’t the spectacular outlook. On the étagère stood a bottle of livid capsules. The label identified them as sleeping-pills.

  With a deft movement Slade slid the bottle into her hand. “The doctor’s name and number are on the label. Find a phone and call him,’ he murmured into her ear.

  She nodded, stepping away from him and pocketing the bottle. ‘Could I use your bathroom?’ she asked Dana.

  Dana made a vague gesture towards a corridor off the main room. ‘S’in there. Take your time.’

  She probably welcomed the excuse to be alone with Slade and try to talk him round. But the threat no longer troubled Eden, who was too intent on trying to locate a telephone. She found one in the master bedroom and sank on to a vast, fur-covered bed to make the call.

  The doctor was out but a redirection service tracked him to a private party and in minutes she was speaking to him. He heard her out and promised to come over straight away. With a sigh of relief, she hung up and found her way back to the living-room.

  Dana was stretched out on a leather couch, her mascara-smudged eyes closed. ‘She passed out,’ Slade said.

  Eden handed the pills back to him. ‘Maybe it’s for the best. Her doctor’s on his way. Luckily he wasn’t far away.’

  Slade weighed the almost full bottle in his hand. ‘It’s just as well I took her call seriously. If she’d taken these on top of the alcohol, she might never have woken up.’

  ‘You saved her life,’ Eden said, pride glowing in her voice.

  He shook his head. ‘We did it together.’

  She brushed damp strands of hair off her forehead. ‘I wondered what had gotten into you when you asked me to look at the view.’

  He gave a heavy sigh. ‘When will you learn to trust me?’

  Her glance went to the sleeping woman then to the strong man standing over her like a sentinel. ‘Maybe I had my first real lesson tonight.’

  ‘You didn’t believe all that nonsense about our marriage being a front for my affair with Dana, did you?’ His eyes darkened and he frowned. ‘You did believe it. Why the hell didn’t you say something instead of letting the suspicion fester?’

  She looked away. ‘I think I was afraid of the answer you might give me.’

  ‘Good God, woman. Have you learned nothing about me since we got married?’

  He crossed the room and took her in his arms, shaking her slightly to emphasise his point. The gesture lifted her momentarily off her feet, pressing her hard against him. She suppressed a groan of desire, wanting him as she had never done before. How could she have doubted him?

  Yet there was his indifference since they arrived home. It was a long time since they had made love, when he had been so demanding at the beginning. If there was no one else, why didn’t he want her any more?

  She was about to ask when the intercom buzzed, announcing the doctor’s arrival. Slade admitted him and explained the situation, then stood back while he examined his patient.

  ‘You were wise to call me. I’ll take care of her from here,’ he assured them. He offered to stay with Dana until an ambulance arrived and she could be taken to a private clinic where
her depression could be treated.

  ‘You’re sure she’ll be all right?’ Eden asked anxiously. She bore the other woman surprisingly little ill will. In many ways, Eden understood her desperation. It must be dreadful to be loved by everyone and no one.

  Slade took her arm. ‘We’ve done all we can here. It’s time to go home.’

  Home. What a haven it seemed after the night’s events. The sound of the great wrought-iron gates swinging shut behind the Jaguar was music to her tired ears. Emotionally, she was a wreck. It was no time to be making decisions which could affect the rest of your life, but she knew she was about to make one all the same.

  In the harrowing aftermath of Dana’s experience, she was being forced to face a truth she had been voiding for too long. She was in love with Slade Benedict.

  It was rash and probably fatal. He didn’t love her and he didn’t believe in the kind of marriage she wanted above all. Yet, against all the odds, she had fallen in love with this arrogant, demanding, insatiable man. Agreeing to marry him for mutual convenience, she had fooled no one except herself.

  She choked back a sob. She could imagine how he would react to a declaration of love. He had handled Dana’s unwanted affection adroitly enough. Doubtless, he had ways of dealing with a. lovesick wife as well.

  He parked the car and stretched his arms, his fingers loose around the steering-wheel. ‘God, what a night. I could fall asleep right here.’

  She began to hum a few bars of ‘Wake Up, Little Susie’ and he laughed, a warm, chocolate sound which sent goose-bumps up her spine. ‘Point taken. If we fell asleep here, we would be in hot water, not only with Ellen, but with our daughter. However would we explain it?’

  ‘It would be difficult,’ she agreed. ‘I’m exhausted, too, but I couldn’t sleep just yet.’

  ‘Join me for a nightcap,’ he suggested.

  It was playing with fire. With her new-found awareness, it was probably wiser to go straight to bed, but it was almost dawn and she felt most unwise. ‘All right.’

  ‘I’ll make it while you change.’

  Refusing to examine her motives too closely, she took a quick shower then dressed in a lacy tricot lounging suit of softly draping top with a side-tie over pull-on trousers. In a mist of Joy perfume, she floated down to the living-room where Slade had their drinks ready.

  He sniffed the air appreciatively. ‘You smell wonderful.’ His lips grazed the side of her neck as he handed her a drink in an ice-frosted glass.

  His nearness forced her to place a steadying hand on his chest. He had cast aside his tie and unbuttoned his business shirt to the waist. His chest hairs rustled against her palm. A low moan began in her throat and she clamped her lips shut. This was definitely a mistake.

  His eyes gleamed brightly, the gold in the grey-green depths hypnotising her, making it impossible to move away. ‘It was quite a niglit, wasn’t it?’ she said, casting around for something, anything, to say to defuse the tension which arced between them like electricity.

  ‘Quite a night,’ he echoed, his lips close to her cheek.

  ‘Do you think Dana would really have done something reckless?’ she asked, her voice a hoarse whisper which sounded loud in the dark, sleeping household.

  A smile tilted up the corners of his mouth. ‘I don’t know, but I think I might.’

  ‘What do you——?’ The words were crushed by the sudden invasion of his kiss. He took the drink from her and set it down on a side-table, then drew her irresistibly into his arms.

  There was something different in his touch this time, something infinitely more tender. It was no less demanding, but he seemed more ready to give than to take from her.

  Inside his shirt, her hand spanned his ribcage, noting the rise and fall of each breath. It was like the ebb and flow of the tide, and his heartbeat, strong and virile, provided a counterpoint. With a sweeping movement, he hooked a hand under her knees and lifted her, placing her on to a shaggy wool rug in front of the fireplace. The long hairs teased her skin, making it, unbearably sensitive. His touch felt so electric that she half expected sparks to fly with each caress. He was kneeling beside her, his arm cradling her back while he kissed her forehead, nose, cheeks, throat and, sweetest of all, the swelling curve of her breasts. Releasing the tie of her top, he let it fall away and kissed the roseate peaks in turn until she stifled cries of ecstasy deep in her throat.

  Alarm bells rang inside her. Loving him made it all the harder to accept his seduction. She wanted him to care. Only then would his lovemaking be truly meaningful.

  She should push him away. So why did her fingers tangle in the thick waves of his hair, the shorter hairs at the nape furring against the pads of her fingers? She had never noticed before what a variety of textures his hair yielded. The discovery silenced the inner voices of caution and she began to explore every inch of him, the soft and the hard, the rough and the smooth.

  ‘Have you any idea what you’re doing to me, woman?’ he demanded on a sharply indrawn breath.

  ‘I’m exploring,’ she said over the siren call of her conscience. Knowing that she loved him, it seemed important to investigate every part of him. One day these memories would be all she had. ‘I feel I hardly know you,’ she observed.

  ‘Are we talking in the clinical or the biblical sense?’ he drawled.

  She closed her eyes, hardly able to force the words out. ‘Perhaps both.’

  He gave a throaty chuckle. ‘I think we know one another very well in the biblical sense. Maybe it’s time for the other.’

  Before she could summon a protest, he slid her lounging pyjamas down her legs, a cool breeze invading her skin. A shiver had hardly begun when the warmth of his caress supplanted it. With each sweeping stroke, she arched her back, her soft mewing pleas urging him on. When he bent his head to allow his mouth to follow the trail blazed by his hands, she could hardly bear it. He was making good his promise to know every part of her and the sweet invasion threatened her sanity. Her mind screamed for him to stop, while her responses urged him on. She wanted him. She needed him. She loved him. He was wholly hers for this moment, no matter what the future held.

  There was a moment when even Slade’s iron control reached its limit. His chest rose and fell in savage rhythm as his knee gently sought the junction of her thighs. As if in slow motion, she arched under him, welcoming the fiery touch as he came to her at last.

  He surrounded her, filled her, fired her with such a tumult of sensations that her very reason was in jeopardy. Silken tissue met rigid flesh in what began as a demonstration of his mastery but became a quest for unity. She fused, melted, bonded with him until she could no longer tell where she ended and he began.

  Now, now, her mind repeated over and over. Nothing else mattered but the blinding, all-consuming need to be loved by him.

  ‘Oh, Slade, Slade.’ His name was the only sensible word her whirling brain could summon.

  Above her, his lips found hers. ‘I know, my darling. I didn’t mean this to happen but you’re a fever in my blood.’

  What did he mean? Didn’t he want to make love to her? The thought that it might already be over between them drove her to demonstrate what she couldn’t put into words. He sensed the change in her, responding to it in ways which took her breath away. It was torture of the sweetest, most tanta-lising kind. Tremors rippled through her, building in intensity until she clung to him as if to a lifeline, her slight body racked by wave after wave of exquisite torment.

  Minutes or hours later, she lay exhausted in his arms, the rug soft beneath her. ‘We should go to bed. What if Katie comes in and finds us like this?’

  He levered himself up on one elbow. ‘Nine is plenty old enough to start learning about the birds and the bees. If she were younger, we might have a problem.’

  He paused thoughtfully. ‘Are you positive that children are out of the question, Eden?’

  Tension replaced some of her languor. ‘What makes you ask me now?’

  ‘You’
re an ideal mother. Perhaps we should consult more doctors, make sure you’ve had the best advice.’

  ‘It won’t change anything,’ she said on a sigh. So he was still dreaming of the son she dared not give him. Anxious to change the subject, she said, ‘We’d better get up before you have some explaining to do to Katie.’

  Her ploy worked. ‘Since when is it my job? Mothers are supposed to teach their daughters about such matters.’

  ‘Which is probably the only reason you married me,’ she retorted, fearing it was close to the truth.

  He kissed her ear, his tongue curling teasingly into the orifice. ‘There may be other reasons.’

  Resisting the temptation to press him, she scrambled to her feet and gathered up her scattered clothes. More than anything she wanted to hear that his reasons included love, but her throat closed on the question. What if he gave the wrong answer? She wasn’t sure she could stand it tonight. ‘I’m going to bed,’ she said. ‘Are you coming?’

  His languid look glided over her slim contours, outlined in lamplight. ‘You go. If I come with you now, we may not get any sleep at all.’

  So it was still purely physical on his part, she thought as she made her way through the darkened house to their bedroom. Even at the height of their passion, he had breathed not a word of love to her, although her heart had been bursting with love for him.

  Face it, he isn’t going to say what he doesn’t feel, she chided herself. All the love was on her side and her naive attempt to seduce him with perfume and provocative clothing had achieved its aim, but not a whit more. He hadn’t wanted to make love to her until she fanned the flames of his desire. She had practically thrown herself at him, and her cheeks flamed with self-mortification.

  They couldn’t go on as they were. She sat bolt upright in bed, the thought strong in her mind. As things were, she wasn’t a wife in any sense beyond the physical. She had thought it was enough but it was tearing her apart. She had to know if he could ever love her. And that meant being honest with him about her family’s medical history.